Resolutions: Outskirts of Town

Jimmy Witherspoon: Outskirts of Town

[purchase]

Outskirts of Town is a classic blues song. B B King, The Allman Brothers, and Big Bill Broonzy are only a few of the artists who have recorded it. Here is a man who loves his girlfriend or wife so much that he can’t imagine how any other man could resist her. So he resolves to move them out of “harm’s way”. As much as he loves her, there is a lack of trust,, to be sure. But when the song is done right, you don’t judge him, because his pain is so real. When I hear the song in my head, I hear Jimmy Witherspoon singing it.

‘Spoon, as he was called by many, perfectly demonstrated the overlap between blues and jazz. He worked with small jazz combos, like the Gerry Mulligan Quintet heard here, but his singing was always pure blues. His delivery was smooth, but it ached with emotion, especially on the ballads. Outskirts of Town is a perfect example.

Resolutions: We're Gonna Change The World

Matt Monro: We're Gonna Change The World (link DMCAed)




For most people it’s enough to resolve to lose weight, quit smoking, save money, find a job or stop swearing. Matt Monro took the bigger view: in the post-heady days of 1970, he made a belated resolution of the Zeitgeist on behalf of a collective plurality which would change the world.

Monro was a British crooner (and a very good one) not famous for his revolutionary aspirations. Apparently he not even owned a beret or a Che beard. In short, he was Mom’s favourite, not a prototype Obama campaigner.

Here I may point out my regret that the Obama campaign failed to adopt We’re Gonna Change The World as their campaign tune, even if it might have made promises that the president could not possibly keep.

There is a persistent but untrue rumour that the song was created for another agent of unfulfilled promises: as a commercial for Corn Flakes, the breakfast cereal of dubious nutritional value, peddled by a corporation of dubious moral values (and which was founded by an utter madman). One can see cause for the rumour. The merry sing-along melody would not seem out of place in a commercial (hence my recommendation to Mr Obama), and then there is the opening verse: “Shirley Wood gulped down her breakfast, shut the fridge and joined the throng. Margaret Beatty snatched the milk in, scanned the news and went along...”

But before too long, Matt has his various female protagonists involved in a public protests, probably an anti-Vietnam demo, Shirley Wood's throng of the first verse. We encounter her again later, being “dragged, still sitting, by a policeman from the road”. Newspaper-reading Margaret Beatty “had her face slapped by a man she tried to goad”. But there is pathos, too. Anne Harris (also mentioned in the first verse), observes the protest from her office, and thinks of Don, her man, killed in combat. Monro observes, presumably with a healthy dose of irony: “Died for others to live better.”

Monro also addresses the women passing by the demo: “Harried, busy shopping wives; try to stir their ostrich notions, whip them up to wild emotions, put some fire into their wretched lives.” It is these harried, busy shopping wives who might just have purchased Matt’s latest album, for some post-housework easy listening relaxation.

All the more subversive then the stirring chorus: “So, come with us, run with us – we’re gonna change your world. You'll be amazed, so full of praise, when we’ve rearranged your world. We’re gonna change your world!”
What’s the way to the Bastille?

Resolutions: I’m Gonna Be an Engineer

Bobbie McGhee: I‘m Gonna Be an Engineer

[purchase]

I don’t usually post quizzes here, but I have a few questions for our readers as we go along. Please respond in the comments. Thanks.

I had two introductions to folk music growing up. One was what I heard at the peace demonstrations I attended, starting at age eight. The other was a program that was broadcast on WQXR out of New York City when I was young. The show was called Woody’s Stepchildren, and I don’t remember the name of the host, so that’s question 1. Does anyone else remember the show? At any rate, that was where I first heard I’m Gonna Be an Engineer. I believe the song was written by Peggy Seeger, and hers was the version I heard. It was my introduction to feminism, before the term had even been coined. I never thought about what kind of engineer the singer was going to be. My father was an electrical engineer, so that must be it.

The version here is by Bobbie McGhee. Who was she? I have no idea, so that’s question 2. All I know is that I like her version better than Seeger’s. McGhee sounds more determined to me, perhaps because feminism had made some strides by the time McGhee recorded it. I can tell you that McGhee’s album came out on Collector Records in 1981, and was reissued by Smithsonian Folkways in 2006.

Years after I first heard this song, I dated a woman who was a mechanical engineer. That was the mid 1980s, and she was still paid less than her male colleagues. I hope things have continued to improve since then. If there are any female engineers among our readers, feel free to report. I hope there will come a day when we no longer have to talk about someone being a female anything; that is what true equality will mean.

Resolutions: Tamara

Juliana Hatfield: Tamara

[Purchase]


There's lots of quotes about tomorrow, most of which are about change, about how tomorrow will be better than today. There's no time like the breaking of a new year to really feel like tomorrow has arrived.

In this early Juliana Hatfield b-side, from her "Forever Baby" single/EP, she has almost created tomorrow as a person, an entity. In that way, she names the song "Tamara", a play on the word "tomorrow". The song is about plans for betterment in general. In the song, she has big plans to make herself better tomorrow than she is today, but by the end of the song she's already started to give up hope that tomorrow/Tamara can ever really change anything and is destined to always be the same.

Resolutions: I Won't Be Your Dog Anymore

Paul Kelly: I Won't Be Your Dog Anymore

[recent web-only recording; purchase alternate live version here]


For every battered woman who keeps promising herself that this time, she's going to leave.

For every man who compromises his ethics daily just to make that next paycheck.

For everyone who has ever been a dog.

May this be your year.

In Memoriam/ Resolutions: Gregory Isaacs - Write Myself a Letter

Gregory Isaacs: Write Myself a Letter

[purchase]

In 2010, the world lost three important reggae artists, Yabby You, Sugar Minott, and Gregory Isaacs. Isaacs was probably the best known. He is credited with creating the reggae style known as “lover’s rock”, which obviously involved love songs. Isaacs wrote many such songs, and he set the mark in reggae for how to sing them. But Write Myself a Letter is an unlikely cover. The original version, which you will find below, was a classic early jazz song by Fats Waller. The conversion of the song into a reggae number shows the rare musical imagination that Isaacs possessed. He also did a fine version of House of the Rising Sun.

Isaacs’ stage persona was all lover, except when he performed his protest songs. But off-stage, he battled an addiction to cocaine for most of his life, and he spent time in and out of jail. This hard lifestyle finally claimed him in 2010.

Bonus track:

Fats Waller: I‘m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

[purchase]

To be honest, I did not set out to do a transitional post at all. The first song I thought of for our new theme was this classic by Fats Waller. The singer’s resolution is to not allow himself to be lonely. I wanted to find an interesting cover version to go with it, and that’s when I discovered the Gregory Isaacs version. He certainly deserves to be honored, so I’m glad it worked out this way.

In Memoriam: Alex Chilton

The Box Tops: The Letter

[purchase]

Big Star: I'm In Love With A Girl

[purchase]

Alex Chilton: Baron of Love Pt. 2

[purchase]

Chameleonesque singer-songwriter Alex Chilton, a legend of the Memphis music scene, died in March on the cusp of a comeback, perhaps the fifth or sixth such comeback in his long career - more if we include such personal notes as his escape from Hurricane Katrina, and his scheduled high-buzz set with a resurrected group performing under the name of the grungy proto-altrockers Big Star at SXSW in 2010, which went on as a tribute without him just days after his passing [and which included was also originally intended to include Big Star cofounder Andy Hummel, who in a curious synchronicity of events, would pass a few months later].

But though his post-seventies turn to post-modern jazz tinged with Memphis soul never brought him the same recognition as his earlier work, Chilton, who at sixteen had made a splash with The Box Tops - the first recording artists to have a Memphis recorded, nationwide, number one hit - and then in his early twenties resurged at the helm of Big Star, is still recognized widely for his role in the evolution of modern Rock music; both bands featured prominently in the annals and archives of both the Stax museum and the Smithsonian museum of Rock and Blues, which I just came back from visiting down in Memphis, and their song On The Street found fitting placement as the theme song for That 70's Show. I shared my own tribute over at Cover Lay Down in the days after his death, but fittingly, today's post also marks the sixth time we've visited him here at Star Maker Machine since our inception. Surely, it won't be the last, either.

In Memoriam: Kate McGarrigle

Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Tell My Sister

[purchase]

Happy new year to all of our readers. Before we leave 2010 behind completely, let me say that this week of tributes would not be complete for me without Kate McGarrigle. After the beauty of her music, Kate McGarrigle makes me think of family. That may seem odd, given the fact that her marriage to Loudon Wainwright III famously ended badly. But McGarrigle was at the center of a series of annual Christmas concerts which included her children, Martha and Rufus Wainwright, her ex-husband, and various members of the Roche clan, who were included because of Loudon Wainwright’s later relationship with Suzzy Roche. So even if the structure was far from conventional, this all tells me that family was important to Kate McGarrigle. And the bond between her and her sister Anna was clearly very strong. So, I’m not sure which sister wrote Tell My Sister, but it seemed appropriate. The line in the song, “I’m coming home”, perhaps takes on a new meaning in this context, but that seems appropriate as well.

This is not, perhaps, the usual kind of writing for a tribute post. Other people have written some tributes to Kate McGarrigle that are far more beautiful than anything I could do. To conclude, I would like to refer you to one those, here.

In Memoriam: Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Lincoln: Talking to the Sun

[purchase]

Give a listen to Talking to the Sun. The song opens with just the drums. That’s just one drummer, but he’s playing an intricate pattern that sounds like it came from Africa. The band joins in, and the music is definitely jazz, but that African feel is still there. Abbey Lincoln starts to sing. Her voice sounds like a second horn, (is there such a thing as an alto trumpet?). She perfectly captures the emotion of the lyric, and her words are clear. After stating the theme, she takes a solo. She skats at the end of the song, but, before that, she is singing the words over, but working magic on the music. The emotion of the piece is only enhanced.

The description above, for me, perfectly captures the artistry of Abbey Lincoln. The connection to Africa did not show up in all of her work, but it was important to her. During the 1960s, she would become active in the Civil Rights Movement. At the time, she also pursued an acting career, and there was hardly any music. In the 70s, even the acting stopped. Her marriage to Max Roach had ended, and she withdrew from the spotlight. When she returned in the 80s, however, she more than proved that she still had it. She focused on the music from then on. Talking to the Sun is from 1984. Lincoln was never afraid to experiment with a wide variety of musical settings, but she never forgot that it must always be about the song. In her early career, from 1956 to the early 60s, she sang other people’s songs. But the later part of her career also proved that she was a fine songwriter as well. Lincoln is gone now, but thirty-five years of music remain. I suspect that jazz singers will be listening to, and learning from, that body of work for a long time to come.

In Memorium: Hank Jones, Herb Ellis, and James Moody

Hank Jones – Herb Ellis – James Moody

Hank Jones: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

[purchase]

Herb Ellis: Sweet Georgia Brown

[purchase]

James Moody: Moody's Mood For Love

[purchase]

The world lost three major American jazz legends in 2010. Hank Jones was 91 at his death, Herb Ellis, 88, and James Moody, 85. All three began their long careers just after World War II in the mid 40's, and all three continued playing and recording well into the 90's and later—Moody recorded a new CD just this year.

Hank Jones, brother of equally famous and talented Thad and Elvin, was a pianist who worked mainly in New York City. Among many of the artists he recorded with are Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, and Lester Young. The song featured here is a solo effort on a CD by his intermittent group, the Great Jazz Trio, from their 2004 album, Someday My Prince Will Come.

Herb Ellis, guitarist, was another post-WWII musician who toured and recorded with Ella, as well as Jimmy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Byrd, but he was best known as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio in the 50's. This version of Sweet Georgia Brown is from the 1980 self-titled album of the Monty Alexander (piano), Ray Brown (bass), and Herb Ellis Trio.

James Moody was a saxophonist best known for his 1949 hit song, Moody's Mood For Love, an improvisation of I'm in the Mood for Love. Moody was a long-time collaborator of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie but also played with Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, and Eddie Jefferson. I'm spotlighting his hit, although I'm not sure if this was the 1949 version or (more likely) a later remake.

In Memoriam: Robbie Jansen & Tony Schilder

Tony Schilder Trio feat. Robbie Jansen: Montreal

(Album out of print)


The jazz scene of Cape Town, South Africa, is quite unique. A port city, it has consolidated the sounds of the Malays who once were imported as slaves by the Dutch with the jazz and soul music collected at the docks from visiting American sailors, the harmonies of Africa with the need to move impelled by the music from Brazil and Cuba, riding the influences of Stan Getz, Miles Davis and Hugh Masekela — and, above all, because it is jazz, the riffing with the collaegues on the scene. It is a scene like no other, a genuinely multicultural melting pot in which the artist is equally at home producing experimental jazz or fusion as he (usually it is a man) is with getting people to dance. Cape jazz has even produced its own form of dance, called the Jazz, which borrows from the Latin types of ballroom dancing. Though never really salacious, it can be very sexy indeed.

Few exponents of Cape jazz sought their fortunes outside their country, or even country. The few who did with success include Jonathan Butler and Abdullah Ibrahim (who before his conversion to Islam was known as Dollar Brand; the nickname acquired because he always had a stash of US currency to buy jazz LPs from sailors). Many of the jazz men who stayed behind became local legends; most have died in undeserved poverty, true martyrs for their art.

The ultimate Cape Town jazz song is Dollar Brand’s Mannenberg, named after the ghetto Manenberg, which is populated by the mixed-race people classified under apartheid as “coloured”, dumped there because their previous homes were located in areas declared “white”. Brand’s multi-racial backing band included the saxophonist and singer Robbie Jansen, a man of prodigious talent and bad habits. Like most of his peers a political activist, Jansen was known to be a generous man who encouraged young talent.

His recorded output was scant; a couple of LPs under his name, a few more on which he appeared (such as those by Pacific Express, Butler’s old band, and briefly Juluka). Above all, Jansen was a live performer. And as such, at a nightclub in ca. 1988, he delivered the greatest interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On I’ve heard (he later recorded the song; alas, I’ve not heard it).

Jansen died on July 7 at 60. Less than half a year later, on December 8, his frequent jazz collaborator and friend Tony Schilder died at 73, after a long illness.

Tony Schilder was known as the gentleman of jazz; always impeccably dressed with polite manners, he played the keyboard like few could. Dollar Brand wrote his jazz symphony about Manenberg, but Schilder made the place his trademark through his co-ownership of and residency in the 1980s at the stylish nightclub Montreal, incongruously located in the rough township. The club’s theme song, a lovely slice of music (with, it must be said, pedestrian lyrics), was recorded twice: in 1985 with Robbie Jansen on vocals (it is that version featured here) and in the 1990s with Jansen and Butler sharing the microphone.

Like Jansen, Schilder built a reputation as a live act. As far as I know, he recorded only three albums, the first of which, titled Introducing Tony Schilder (1985), was produced by Jonathan Butler, who also sang and played guitar on it (and had a song, JB's Back In Town, named after him). That set, with great vocal tracks and Latin-flavoured instrumentals, remains one of my all-time favourite jazz albums – objectively so, even if that preference may be clouded by the nostalgia for my younger, more handsome nightclubbing days...

After Jansen died, a trade unionist proposed that the city of Cape Town name a street after him. I believe a whole district should be named after the greats of the Cape Jazz scene.

Read an excellent post on Schilder at this outstanding blog.

In Memoriam: Lhasa de Sela

Lhasa de Sela: Anywhere on This Road

[purchase]

Lhasa de Sela, Lhasa to her fans, was born in Mexico and eventually settled in Montreal. She had, as they say, “big ears”; she heard everything as she traveled throughout North America and Europe, and it all became part of her sound. So one song might show the influence of gypsy music, another might sound jazzy, still another might suggest her Mexican roots, and all on the same album. She sang in Spanish, English, and French, and sounded comfortable in all three languages. The constants that made her albums work as coherent packages were the passion of her vocals and her musical imagination. Perhaps she would have made more albums if she had known how little time she had, but, as it stands, only three albums, made from 1997 to 2009, are her legacy. Lhasa completed her last album while battling her illness. She succumbed to breast cancer on New Year’s Day, 2010. She was 37.

In Memoriam: Ronnie James Dio

Ronnie Dio & The Prophets: Love Pains

[purchase?]


Elf: Happy

[purchase]


Elf: Good Time Music

[purchase]


Roger Glover: Love Is All (feat. Ronnie James Dio)

[purchase]


Before he replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the frontman of Black Sabbath in 1979 and formed his own classic band Dio in 1982 and became the godfather of heavy metal, Ronnie James Dio had decidedly softer music on his repertoir. Being part metalhead, part softy, I find nearly everything the man recorded in his 53 year career irresistable.

Everything from the doo wop and r'n'b of Ronnie Dio & The Prophets (Love Pains is the b-side from their 1962 debut single), to the rockin' and rollin' swagger of Elf, from his guest spot on Roger Glover's wonderfully whimsical and silly The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (based on the children's book of the same name) to heavy metal thunder of Holy Diver. Everything.

But on May 16th stomach cancer took one of the most powerful voices the world has heard. How pipes that huge could fit in a body so tiny remains a mystery.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): True Blue Miracle / Keep Christmas With You

Sesame Street Cast: True Blue Miracle

[purchase DVD]

There's much to recommend this song, though the best part, for me, is hearing the voices of so many beloved actors from Sesame Street take their turn at celebrating the season. But unlike so many of our previous posts in this week's theme, for some reason, the original songs which come from my absolute favorite, perennial must-see holiday special Christmas Eve on Sesame Street haven't been covered well, if at all.

Okay, so Oscar's I Hate Christmas really wouldn't bear out as a softer tune, even with a heavy dollop of irony; if anything, it would work only as a thrashpunk number. And truly, this song is so definitive in the original, I fear coverage would only end up sapping the life right out of it.

But perhaps the world is overdue for a few versions of the Bob McGrath-led tune Keep Christmas With You, which one can't help but imagine in the transformative hands of some modern low-voiced male singer-songwriter like M. Ward or David Bazan, or perhaps in the sweet, rich tones of Rosie Thomas or Shawn Colvin. Anyway, it makes me cry, every time. So here: see it as it was meant to be seen. And Merry Christmas, to each and every one of us.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): When The River Meets The Sea

Emmet & Alice Otter: When The River Meets The Sea

[purchase on DVD]

Rose Polenzani w/ Session Americana: When The River Meets The Sea

[purchase]

As I wrote on my "other" blog two years ago as part of a feature on this week's topic, "if this Paul Williams-penned tune wasn’t familiar from two of Jim Henson’s most magical Christmas specials ever*, it would fit perfectly in the gospelfolk canon." And though it makes but slight allusion to the Christmas story itself, it makes a good hymn, too - as my wife and I discovered performing it for church last year around this time, with naught but the appalachian dulcimer to accompany us.

But though Emmet's story is a beloved childhood memory, it took singer-songwriter Rose Polenzani's 2008 release of the same name to truly bring the beauty of this song home to me. Piano, strings, and sweet harmonies come courtesy of fellow Bostonians Session Americana, who specialize in intimate and occasionally raucous pubfolk, but the voice and arrangement are all Rose, showing why I'm such a fan of the diminutive folk artist. For her sparser live version - equally potent, in its own way - head over to Cover Lay Down, where you'll find it part of this year's set of Secular Songs and Nondenominational Carols.

*The version from Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas is the original, of course, predating the John Denver and the Muppets version by a couple of years - I would have posted the latter, too, which presents the song as a sweet and mild duet between Denver and Kermit's nephew Robin the Frog, but it's been stuck in our car's CD player for a couple of weeks now.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): Baby It’s Cold Outside

Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel: Baby It‘s Cold Outside

[purchase]

Baby, It’s Cold Outside is one of those accidental holiday songs. There is no mention in the lyrics of Christmas, and the spirit of the piece is really not very Christmasy at all. Frank Loesser wrote Baby It’s Cold Outside in 1944, and he marked the two parts in the score "mouse" and "wolf". For four years, Loesser performed the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at informal occasions. Then, in 1948, Loesser sold the rights to the song to MGM. Garland was reportedly furious.

MGM’s first move was to place the song in a movie, Neptune’s Daughter, where it was sung twice, by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams, and also by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. Another notable soundtrack appearance of the song was by Bette Midler and James Caan in the 1991 film For the Boys. But here, we hear the version from the song’s most recent soundtrack appearance, in the movie Elf. As far as I can tell, this is the first time the song was used in a holiday-themed movie. Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel play the parts of the wolf and the mouse perfectly.

Over the years, the song has been performed by some very unlikely couples. Here are a few: Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart, Martina McBride and Dean Martin, James Taylor and Natalie Cole, and my favorite for sheer weirdness, Ann-Margaret and Al Hirt.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): Christmas Time Is Here

Vince Guaraldi Trio: Christmas Time is Here

[purchase]

Sarah McLachlan ft. Diana Krall: Christmas Time is Here

[purchase]

I've got a few minutes before dinner, just time enough for the lowest of low-hanging fruit on our weekly theme. If you've never heard the soundtrack to the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas --- welcome to planet Earth!

Vince Guaraldi, in the mid-60's a hot jazz player who was following Stan Getz into Bossa Nova, was tapped because he, like Charles Schulz, was active in the San Francisco area. It was an inspired marriage – Guaraldi scored all the rest of the lucrative Charlie Brown TV specials.

I've also included a gorgeous 2006 cover by songstress Sarah McLachlan, with Diana Krall on piano. Enjoy!

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch

Thurl Ravenscroft: You‘re a Mean One, Mr Grinch

[purchase]

I grew up in a Jewish home, so I don’t get nostalgic for most of the old Christmas specials. Still, there were two that we always watched: A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch. Yes, I know the full title is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but every year there was that one special night when the cry went up, “Hurry, The Grinch is on!” The song is further proof that the bad guys always get the best stuff to sing, even during the holidays.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Judy Garland: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

[purchase]

Liz Story: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

[purchase]

Tom Scott: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

[purchase]

This Christmas standard was first introduced to the world by Judy Garland in Meet Me In St. Louis. The original lyrics, which reflected the film's plotline of the family facing an unwanted move to New York, had fairly depressing lyrics to begin with: Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last, Next year we may all be living in the past. Garland and the director (her future husband, Vincent Minnelli) persuaded the songwriter to make it a little cheerier, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's been covered approximately a bajillion times since the 1944 film. Here are two: one's a smooth jazz sax version by Tom Scott, for GRP's first Christmas album. The second is new age piano by Liz Story, recorded at Windham Hill Records in 1994.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): Silver Bells

Bob Hope & Marilyn Maxwell: Silver Bells

Bing Crosby & Carol Richards: Silver Bells

Kate Smith: Silver Bells
[purchase]

Vonda Shepard: Silver Bells
[purchase]


Over at the Any Major Dude With Half A Heart blog, I run a series on the lesser-known originals of big hits (in the service of unabashed self promotion, the nearly 200 originals so far covered, as it were, can be found HERE). One original I have not included yet is the yuletide perennial Silver Bells, which takes the feast to the streets where Santas ring their bells in the pursuit of raising funds for charitable causes.

Silver Bells has served to score several movie soundtracks, and it was in the movies that the song debuted, performed by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell. Or it did so in a way...

The film was The Lemon Drop Kid, a crime caper in which good-natured eponymous hustler-on-the-run Hope disguises himself as a fundraising Santa Claus with the help of love interest Maxwell in the course of which our heroes sing Silver Bells (do not be alarmed by the plot outline; the story has a happy ending). The movie was filmed in July/August 1950, but wasn’t released until March 1951.

In the interim, the great yuletide crooner Bing Crosby recorded the song with Carol Richards (who got her break in a Bob Hope talent contest). Their version was issued in October 1950 and was so successful that Hope and Maxwell’s Silver Bells scene was reshot for a more elaborate scene. Billboard in their review thought Bing & Carol’s recording had promise, saying “it has a folksy flavour which could catch big”. The “simple and unaffected” performance “could score”, the trade mag predicted.

Written by the successful songwriting team of Ray Evans and Jay Livingston (who originally called it “Tinkle Bells”), Silver Bells did indeed catch big. It has been prodigiously covered – at least four new versions have been released this year alone.

A rather lovely version of the song appears in the wonderful Polar Express, in which Santa’s silver bell serves as a belated MacGuffin of sorts, recorded in 1966 by Kate Smith (who is perhaps best known for her 1943 rendition of Irving Berlin’s reworked version of God Bless America). Vonda Shepard, by dint of her residence on the Ally McBeal series something of a covers queen, also recorded it. Not having been a great fan of that festival of affected eccentricity, I don’t really know whether it ever appeared on the show, but it was included on the 2000 spin-off album A Very Ally Christmas. And quite lovely it is too.